Posts tagged “Facebook”

is where this account comes from. It is from a ‘friend’ on my Facebook Community Page Remembering the Shoals.

All I can say is my jaw just hit the floor and my eyes are wide open. If she wants her name made public, then she can comment on this article with her name, otherwise, just know that it is somebody we all know. Update: she has given permission to use her name, and she is June Winegardner White.

Below is the text in her own hand:

I started backpacking Europe in the mid 80s. I bought a how-to book, a backpack and a Eurail pass. I was a college student with a history major and a political science minor. My goal was to see the places I had studied about and meet the people who lived in those places. I spent 3 weeks each year traveling, meeting people and keeping a journal. Sometimes a friend or family member would go with me but when I decided to go into communist countries no one wanted to go. Some didn’t want to go out of fear but others were just not interested in seeing communism up close and personal.

In 1986, I persuaded my college adviser to help me design a 6 week trip to eastern Europe that would allow me to get college credit for the trip. I flew into Frankfort, Germany and took a train into Berlin where I entered the world of communism for the next six weeks. I had already made one side trip into Russia and Poland for a week and saw enough to know I wanted to return.

Friends I had made in Poland gave me the use of an apartment that belonged to a family member. It was centrally located and my friends spoke a little English so I felt comfortable there. They had asked me to bring a bottle of cognac with me from America. That was the payment they wanted for me using the apartment. The price was right so I wagged the bottle all the way from Oklahoma to Sierpc, Poland.

One of my Polish friends had a pregnant family member and no money to pay her doctor. They had subsidized health care provided by the government so the doctor was paid for but he would not provide any anesthesia because that was considered unnecessary. She’d had a difficult delivery with her first child and no anesthesia and was petrified of facing another delivery without it. The doctor had told her he would provide the anesthesia if she could get him a bottle of cognac from America. He thought it was an impossibility for her so he said it more as a taunt than anything. When I got there we marched into the doctor’s office with the bottle and through an interpreter I told him the bottle would be his AFTER the delivery of the child WITH anesthesia. At first he insisted on me giving him the bottle then but I refused and started to walk out with the bottle. He called me back and said I could bring him the bottle on the day of the delivery. I agreed but only with the stipulation that the baby be delivered before the bottle was. He agreed and that’s how she got her anesthesia for the birth of her 2nd child.

This same doctor had treated her before she married for a broken nose she sustained from a car accident. The nose didn’t heal properly on its own so she went to the doctor to see what he could do. He told her he would have to rebreak it and he did……..with a rubber hammer…..without anesthesia.

When setting up the Facebook account, the Remembering the Shoals page was set up as a ‘personal’ page which is named Remembering Shoals. Later, there was an attempt to set up the page as an ‘Official” page which is named Remembering the Shoals. There was an attempt to delete the personal page but that also deleted the official page. This has been a real conundrum. Additionally, Facebook some how magically added a second ‘official’ page.

Since we are soon approaching the capacity for ‘friends’ on the personal page [Remembering Shoals], it is necessary to get our ‘friends’ to transfer over to the Official page. Attempts have been made to do this, but it was confusing for many. Then an attempt was made to ‘invite’ our friends over to our Official page. That was not successful either.

So many more features can be accessed through the Official page, plus there is no limit on the number of friends that can LIKE our page. We hope to add an Event section, for example. So, here comes the solution, hopefully.

Beginning immediately, you are asked to go to our Official Page of Remembering the Shoals. There would you please press the LIKE button at the top of your screen under the ‘search’ box. To aid in getting to the right page, you will find our profile picture (if the page does not have this graphic you are at the wrong page) to be the following:

You are officially at our OFFICIAL PAGE, please LIKE us here.

The people who like our Official Page, even those who have already LIKEd us there, will have their name placed in the pot. And on November 25, 2011 a name will be drawn and a prize will be awarded for this promotion. The name drawn will have their family history researched* and presented to them in time for Christmas; and will be presented a voucher to have one old family photo either restored or improved. All that just for liking us.

And like Sally Field at the Oscars, we sure hope you do LIKE us.

*at least three generations of names and dates (as close to the 1930s as possible) will be needed to complete the family research

as Remembering the Shoals? The answer is at the same time simple and complex.

Doing this was suggested to me by someone I love dearly. She knew my love of history, genealogy and my hometown – the Shoals area. She also knew the massive amount of research that I have been compiling for more than three decades. She knew my expertise in writing, researching, compiling, and documenting as well as my training in graphic design.

So, together we said in unison, “That is a great idea!”

There was no doubt I would put forth the tremendous amount of work required; and I knew it would be something my future generations would be proud to read. So, Remembering the Shoals, was birthed in late December 2010. And I am loving it, every minute of it. I think it a worthwhile endeavour.

Everything seems to be progressing along nicely, thus far.

After recent events with another and similar Facebook page, there seems a need to broadcast our goals.

That is the simple part:

– Our goal is to documentThe Shoalsarea, its history, its people, and its places

– Our goal is to do this free of charge for the Facebook page as long as it remains free of charge for us.

– Our goal is to tell the history in photos and in well researched articles in order to give ‘roots’ to our children; knowing their history will help them use their ‘wings’ to take flight into the surly and boundless skies of what will be their future; a world that will likely be so different from the Norman Rockwell world we grew up in that they will ‘need’ to know who they are and from where they come.

What we are ‘not’ up to is another simple question to answer:

-We are not going to publish a book and charge you for your own history; however, our blog allows you to print out the pages in book format if that is what you desire. If you click on a photo on the blog, it will enlarge and you are able to print it out. We try to make the photos a nice size to put in an album or print on photo paper. If you want a book, then you can print your own from there.

-There may be a time in the future that advertising, or promotions, may be needed for there is a limit to the bandwidth for music, photos, and audio on our blog. But so far, so good. With the amount of work with the research and writing, which takes a tremendous amount of time, there will come a time when we outgrow a blog and need a website.

– Whatever we do, we will not have a hidden agenda, nor will we fail to let readers know well in advance when we have something planned; no surprises here.

But, may we suggest that you take a few minutes to find and read the rules and regulations for Facebook? Please take note of Item #2 for it is especially important.

Our articles and graphics originate with our blog site at https://rememberingtheshoals.wordpress.com and there our ‘stuff’ is branded before it is linked to our official Facebook page also entitled Remembering the Shoals. We learned a long time ago that in the hands of others that cameras, printers, scanners, and copy machines know not who owns rights to what. So, be aware.

We hope you will comment, add memories, add photos on our Facebook page and comment on our site. We hope you LIKE us and FRIEND us; and we hope you encourage your friends and family to do the same. We have some exciting things planned that will be coming up in the next few months. We hope you l-o-v-e what we are doing and continue to show your support.

We wish the owners of other similar Facebook pages success. There is no competition here. We all serve different purposes. We, at Remembering the Shoals, believe that history and knowledge is like love, the more one shares it the more love multiplies.

We close with one last thought: We simply can not allow our future generations to let PAST be PROLOGUE to those things alien to our values and our America. Always remember our motto: The past is the present for future generations who do not know their history. That motto gives us great purpose.

There are more than two hundred suggestions for ‘friends’ to Remembering the Shoals awaiting processing. The problem is that Facebook evidently allows only so many requests to go through in a certain time period. Bummer.

It is so encouraging that those who are ‘friends’ already are sending suggestions of their ‘friends.’ Thank you one and all. If you or your friends are waiting for confirmation, may we suggest that each of you request to become our ‘friend.’ Perhaps that would resolve the problem. This is such an impediment to progress as we consider Remembering the Shoals blog and the official Remembering the Shoals Facebook page to be documenting history. After all, we must give our kids roots if we want them to take wing. If you are of the same opinion, please consider making the ‘friend’ request to us, and pressing the button to LIKE our pages and posts.